1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to protective cases for portable electronic devices. More particularly, the present invention relates to a protective case for portable electronic devices which can provide a protective function focused on the periphery of a portable electronic device, facilitate the operation of coupling the protective case to the electronic device or removing it therefrom, and reliably maintain its coupled state.
2. Description of the Related Art
Portable electronic devices refer not only to smartphones, such as I-phones, Android phones, etc., but also to different kinds of electronic devices, for example, electronic dictionary devices, MP3 players, game players, and so on. Though there are a variety of portable electronic devices, among them, so-called bar-type devices, which have a display panel on the front thereof, have recently been gaining popularity.
The display panels of such portable electronic devices are generally vulnerable to impact, so if the devices drop onto the ground, it may cause problems, for example, of damage to the display panels. Therefore, protective cases are typically used to protect the portable electronic devices from impact.
Such protective cases for portable electronic devices are developing along with the growth of portable electronic devices. Rather than a type that covered the entire area of a portable electronic device as in the past, a bumper style protective case, which wraps the periphery of the portable electronic device while allowing the front surface of the electronic device to be open, has recently been gathering popularity.
Such bumper style protective cases are classified into two kinds: one is made of an elastic material such as rubber or the like and wraps the periphery of a portable electronic device; and the other includes two bodies that are made of a material that is harder than rubber and can be removably coupled to each other.
The former has an integrated structure, making the use thereof easy, but if the elasticity of the rubber becomes weak, it may stretch and not be able to come into close contact with a portable electronic device, thus reducing the lifetime thereof.
On the other hand, the latter can mitigate the problem of rubber being stretched as time goes by, but because it is typically configured such that locking parts are formed at left and right sides on two bodies of the protective case at the same level, the locking of the locking parts is undesirably easily released by a force that is applied to the protective case in the longitudinal direction. In addition, coupling two bodies to each other or separating them from each other is far from convenient.
Therefore, an improved protective case is required, which particularly wraps the periphery of a bar-type portable electronic device to protect the device, and that can not only facilitate coupling the protective case to the device, but can also enhance the durability thereof.
Therefore, a need exists for a system and method for performing a self diagnosis of a device without the inconvenience caused when manually selecting a self diagnosis item from a computer or a user interface